My distribution of choice, Solus Linux, released KDE-6 on Friday, 29 March 2024. I updated my system on Saturday, 30 March 2024, and I had a few minor issues following the upgrade. After performing the upgrade, I rebooted my computer as suggested in the associated alert posting. After the reboot, all the installed applications seemed to have disappeared, so I started experimenting.
I opened the Application Launcher (KDE’s answer to the start menu in Windows), and there were no applications or categories listed, but the Search field was still there at the top, so I searched for Firefox, and an option to Run Firefox appeared in the right pane (where applications are typically listed), so I clicked it, and Firefox opened with its icon displayed in the icons-only task manager. I ALT-Clicked it and selected “Pin to Task Manager”, and it worked, so I un-pinned the blanked-out icon that was previously for Firefox. After repeating this procedure for all the apps I keep pinned to the task manager, for some reason I haven’t discovered, all the installed applications re-appeared in the Application Launcher’s menu.
My next action was to switch to a login screen/SDDM theme that’s compatible with KDE-6. I selected the Maldives theme, changing the background image to forest-street.png (the default desktop image for KDE on Solus Linux).
The last thing to ‘fix’ was getting rid of the on-screen keyboard in the login screen. After multiple Internet searches, I found a solution that works in a post titled sddm blocks screen with on-screen keyboard in Ubuntu 20.04. Even though the post is for Ubuntu, the solution works in Solus Linux too, so I suspect it will work with almost any distribution.
Following the directions, I opened the file /etc/sddm.conf.d/kde_settings.conf in nano (as a sudoer/administrator), then added the following comments and command as the last item(s) in the General section of the file:
# This disables the on-screen keyboard from popping up when
# Username and Password are being entered at the Login screen.
InputMethod=
I saved my changes, closed Konsole, and rebooted Solus. I was no longer plagued with the on-screen keyboard.
Ernie